Those Stars Burned Brightly
by CaliforniaRushing
Summary: The Grey's and the Torres' have been family friends since...as far as Mitchie knows. As Mitchie spends her tenth summer with them in the Colorado Rockies, find out why this summer is so different from the rest. Continued inside..
1. Not Even Just Friends

The Grey's and the Torres' have been family friends since...as far as Mitchie knows. As Mitchie spends her tenth summer with them in the Colorado Rockies, find out why this summer is so different from the rest. Why do Mitchie and Shane really hate each other? What happened last summer? Find out in "Those Stars Burned Brightly"

X)X)X)333:]:]:]

This is my first Camp Rock, and I'm really, really excited about it!!!

This is just the prologue, the chapters won't ever be this short, I promise!

"I can't believe you are doing this to me," Mitchie uttered for maybe the thousandth time that day.

"Oh, give me a break Michelle. It's not like one summer with the Grey's will kill you. You used to love this! It'll be fun!" Connie Torres called as she continued to stride through the airport, frantically searching for the correct terminal. "Oh! Finally!"

_Yes, finally. I am so happy that I am standing under the Terminal labeled 'Denver, Colorado' instead of the one directly next to me. Labeled 'Paris, France.' So happy._ Mitchie thought heatedly.

Mitchie was the "perfect" one. She got great grades, had a great reputation, and would never hurt a fly. She hated only one person in the whole world. And that was Shane Grey. Whom she was about to spend another summer with. For the tenth summer in a row.

But as she exited the Denver airport, she knew this summer would be different. Because as she exchanged warm greetings and hugs with the rest of the Grey family, Shane gave her a look that could only be described as "I Wish You Would Die". As she loaded her suitcase into the backseat of the Grey's van, she sighed and comforted herself the best she could.

_At least he didn't bring her with him, _She told herself before hopping into the car, where she buckled in to prepare for the five hour drive up to Keystone, sitting next to none other than…you guessed it.


	2. Camp Rock

Four hours and forty three minutes. That's how much longer Mitchie still had to endure the ever familiar presence of Shane Grey.

"So Mitchie, how was your school year?" Mrs. Grey asked Mitchie, to relieve some of the tension in the car.

"It was fantastic. I actually had a 4.0 average this year!" she replied enthusiastically.

"Fantastic…4.0 this year…" Shane mumbled childishly, so that only Mitchie could hear.

"Oh, please, Shane. You're just jealous because you hardly passed this year." Mitchie muttered wittily.

She looked at him for the first time since arriving, a small smirk playing on her lips.

Shane almost smiled for a minute, before catching himself, and whispering, "Maybe that's because I, unlike you, had a girlfriend to distract me from school."

The smirk on Mitchie's face quickly dropped, and she looked at him a second longer before turning to the window, fuming. That was a low blow, and he knew it.

"What are you two lovebirds whispering about already?" Mr. Torres asked, oblivious to the complete looks of shock he received from everyone else in the car.

She quickly turned and said, "Dad! That is not even a little bit funny. Seriously, don't joke like that!"

"But…I thought you guys were-"he began, before being very efficiently cut off.

"We are not! So don't say things like that. God."

A very loud silence followed.

Four hours and forty one minutes. Oh boy.

-------------------------

Sure enough, four hours and forty eight minutes actually passed before Mitchie could leap from the car safely. She had the car's trunk open before the car was even off, and had inserted her key card into the slot and made her way to her usual bedroom before anyone else had even exited the car. As she settled her suitcase onto her bed, the memories of last summer and all the summers previous began to come back to her.

She thought about the first time she walked into this room, toting a much smaller Strawberry Shortcake suitcase. She felt a sharp pang in her heart as she remembered everything that had happened in the room, meeting Shane, arguing with Shane, their first—She quickly shook her head, as if to shake the memories out of her head.

That was the past, and the only thing she could do to make this summer go faster was think about the future.

A few hours later, Mitchie decided to venture back downstairs. She figured it wasn't going to do any good to stay locked up in her room all summer, though that did sound like a surefire way to avoid Shane. With Mitchie's excellent timing, she was just changing for dinner when the door to her room burst open, and a very unhappy Shane burst through the door as Mitchie's shirt was just coming off over her face.

"My mom sent me up here to tell you—Oh God!" Shane quickly half shut the door, and tore his eyes away from Mitchie, and settled them on the holey sock on the wood floor, his face burning.

"Sorry…oh. Um, uh… wow. Sorry! My mom just sent me up here to tell you dinner is ready! Jesus Christ…uh, really, I didn't think about knocking, it's just a habit…I'm sorry." Shane quickly stuttered out, his face, turning slightly more colored with every word.

Mitchie just stood there for a minute, before putting a formfitting plain white shirt on, and sauntered right past him. Halfway down the hall, he heard her say, "It's not like you haven't seen it before anyway."

Shane just stood in the door, staring stupidly after where her body disappeared into the staircase.

-------------------------

At dinner, everything was a little less tense. Tentative speech was attempted, and even enjoyed by the adults. Mitchie, Nate, and Jason made small talk, and she even asked Shane to "Pass the mashed potatoes. Please".

Finally, when everyone was mostly finished eating, Mrs. Grey turned to Mitchie, "So, Mitchie, since you're seventeen now, I thought I would do you a favor and try to get you a job at the Camp Shane works at!"

"Oh, wow. That's…uhm…so nice of Mrs. Grey! What Camp is this?"

"Well I remembered that you and Shane used to love to make music together when you were younger, and thought Camp Rock would be a great place for you too! I just gave the Camp Supervisor that tape we made when you kids were nine, and he said that if you could sing like that at nine years old, you'd fit in beautifully at camp. Doesn't that sound super fun?"

Shane and Mitchie glanced quickly at each other, before replied in unison, "Super."


	3. Broken Hearts andnew girlfriends

Mitchie was sure that the next six days until this 'Camp Rock' job was to begin were going to be the longest days of her life. They had arrived Tuesday, and by Wednesday afternoon she was counting down the seconds. It would have been almost bearable, Mitchie believed, had Shane's girlfriend not knocked on the door early Wednesday morning, however.

Mitchie hadn't slept for more than two hours comfortably, so at 5:00 A.M., she decided that she wasn't going to be having that problem the next night, and would exercise to make her exhausted by the evening. She carelessly threw on a plain white Hanes V-Neck, and some electric blue running shorts, followed by her Nike's and a black hoodie. Even during the summertime, she would be lucky if the temperature reached over 50 degrees in the mountains before 9 in the morning. She left a note on the kitchen counter in case she wasn't back before everyone woke up, saying "Exercise = Mitchie". She then stuck her key card and cell phone in her sports bra, before heading out the door, in the direction of trail that would take her all the way to Keystone Village.

About 45 minutes later, Mitchie, finally made it to the Village. Considering she wasn't used to the thin air, she had walked more of the distance than she liked. She decided to swing back by River Run and rent a bike, just for an hour or so, to make her trip more useful. As she walked into closest bike rentals place she could find, she looked around at the lake, and could just see the lights in the Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory flickering on, and the bungee jump trampolines being assembled. Ever since she could remember, this is what summer was all about. She couldn't imagine not spending her summer here, regardless of the animosity between her and Shane this time around.

Just as her mind began to wander to Shane, the guy at the register called, " I'll be with you in a minute I just gotta go get th—" he stopped short when Mitchie turned around to look at him.

"Oh. Ahhh…nevermind. I can ge-get you right now." He managed to stutter out, before clearing his throat and trying to look professional.

"Can I just get a bike for an hour, please?" Mitchie said quickly, studying the guy. He was tall, and he was a little bit beautiful. He had dark, semi-short hair, and dazzling green eyes. She quickly looked down at her shoes, and tried really hard not to blush, or melt into a puddle of Mitchie. Both of those would not be ideal at this moment.

"Can I just scan your card real quick?" Bit-Of-Beautiful asked.

"Oh. Yeah. Sure. Um, just one sec."

Sure, let me just get that right out for you. From my sports bra. Hoping that he would continue to stare at the screen, she tried to discreetly reach into her shirt/wipe off the sweaty card before he looked up, which didn't work out like she'd hoped. Just as she was reaching into her shirt to grab the card, he looked up expectantly, before widening his eyes and throwing his head back towards the screen.

Mitchie very slowly slid the card over the counter, into his view. He silently scanned the card and slid it back over the counter. She took it without a word, and grabbed the bike closest to the door. Feeling reckless, she turned her head back to look at him, and threw him a wink before exiting. He smiled wide, before laughing and waving her off.

_Maybe this summer won't suck after all._

Psych.

When Mitchie finally returned home from her little adventure, she found a new note to replace the one she left. It read "Everyone = Breakfast".

_Clever, Mom. Really._

Mitchie hopped onto the counter and was just about to sink her teeth into a spankin' red apple, when the doorbell rang.

Setting her apple on the counter, she jogged to the door to answer it.

Mitchie's imagination could have never done this girl justice. The girl waiting on the other side of the door was, without a doubt, perfection personified.

The girl was maybe 5"2', if that. She had that perfect, natural blonde wavy hair that 95% of the population would kill to have. She had perfect, high cheekbones, and a few light freckles. She was wearing baggy-on-purpose styled shorts, and a dark blue wife beater. But it wasn't any of this that Mitchie noticed first. The dominating feature on this unknown girl's face was her bright, bright eyes. One eye was blue, with brown in the middle, and the other was bright, bright green with brown in the middle.

The perfect girl stepped into the house, Starbucks at hand, and weaseled her 95 pounds past Mitchie, before saying, "Sorry I just invited myself in, it's just totally fah-reezing out there! Hi, I'm Harlem."

_Harlem. Harlem?_

She stuck her hand out to shake, and Mitchie shook it, while replying with "Mitchie…" very much bewildered. "Why exactly…uh, is anyone expecting you?"

"Oh, yeah, I think so…Is Shane here? I'm kind of his girlfriend…" she trails off with a little laugh.

_Oh._ "Oh. Yeah, he's…out, right now? But you are welcomed to stay and wait if you want." As she spoke, Mitchie was already walking towards the stairs, realizing she smelled like shit, to put it nicely.

And as she sat on her shower floor, feeling all the nasty pour off her body, she heard the rest of the house return, and a joyous shout of, "Harlem!" echo all the way up from the entry way.

Fresh tears mingled with the water running down her face, but Mitchie knew she couldn't hate Harlem. Harlem, or even Shane, didn't know how much it hurt her to see him moving on, when she felt like she never could. Shane couldn't ever forgive her for last summer, would never even consider an explanation. That's what hurt the most. When Mitchie needed him the absolute most, he was too hurt to even speak, to understand. He merely assumed the worst, and had found Harlem just two days later.

XXXXXOOOOOOXOXOXOXOSxMsXmSxM

So…can anyone guess what's going on yet?!?

Now that my worst finals are out of the way, I can write a whole lot more, and I already have two more chapters-ish. Still need a little revising though, so this will have to do for now! Thoughts??


	4. Girl, No Wonder Hes Going Crazy Psycho!

Mitchie came out of her room twice that day after her shower. Once, because she had been fantasizing about that apple since she had set it on that damn counter, and the next because Mrs. Gray had made flank steak, something even Shane and Holy Harlem couldn't keep her away from.

Mitchie came down to set the table at 5:30, just like she had done since she could remember to find a perfectly set table. What. The. Hell.

"Hey, Mitchie…where have you been? I was kinda hoping to get to know you today, you know?" Harlem popped through the connecting kitchen doorway, toting a bunch of cups, which she placed at everyone's place…and an extra one which was obviously for her.

"Oh, sorry, I had no idea! I was just super busy…with my…summer homework? I was just super absorbed with the book. You know how it is." Mitchie managed to piece together a reasonable excuse. She couldn't exactly say, "Oh, well I was just super busy moping around about you and your boyfriend's relationship and how my life was super perfect until around the time you showed up. Weird."

"Well, how about we sit next to each other at dinner, then? I placed you right here." Harlem said as a couple more household members trickled in, each piled high with plates and bowls of steak, salad, strawberries, and every green vegetable Mitchie's mother could get a hold of.

Mitchie almost shat a brick as Harlem began to sit down. In Mitchie's spot. This table had always had a special order, with both Fathers at the head of the table, their wives on their rights, Mitchie, and Nate on the side closest to the kitchen and the wall, and Shane and Jason on the other side where a chair could be pulled up next to them, reserved for guests.

Mitchie begrudgedly sat down at her "assigned seat", and then Shane breezed into the room, and sat down at his usual place.

"Shane, baby, I was hoping you'd sit by me, over here?" came from Harlem's evil little mouth.

Mrs. Gray turned her head from the conversation she was having in the doorway to give Harlem a surprised look. Shane slowly got up from his seat and very, very slowly made his way to the other side of the table, where he slumped into his chair with a tad of a scowl. Harlem just looked at him with a pretty little smile, and he sat a little straighter, and gave her a little smile and a nudge back.

Everyone else fumbled their way into their seats and sat, preparing for grace. Mitchie and Nate shared a glance across the table while everyone grabbing hands for grace, relaying their mutual disdain for the new table places.

Five minutes into the awkward conversations, Nate kept complaining about how Jason chewed his food, and when he wasn't he was yelling across the table to Mitchie, only to be yelled over by the adults also trying to communicate. Shane and Harlem were lost in their own little world, feeding each other and earning repulsive looks from Mitchie, Jason, and Nate.

Four minutes into The Dinner From Hell, Mitchie's phone vibrated in her back pocket. Figuring her mother and Mrs. Gray were arguing over which vegetable was most nutritious, she flipped her phone open sideways, so that she could use her keyboard, and read the text from NATE:

"This sucks. I miss u."

Mitchie smirked, before catching his eye and then texting back:

" Chinese firedrill? ;D"

Barely thirty seconds later, Nick texted back:

"I'm tellin Shane & Jason, doing it at 7:42 precise."

Sure enough, exactly three minutes later, the Mitchie and the boys exchanged glances, and then bolted from their seats, all screaming something about fires and Asians and ran out of the room.

The parents didn't even seem to notice, but Harlem sat at the table scared shitless, staring at the doorway where they had exited. But she didn't have long to wait, because they were all back within ten seconds, sitting in random new places, and then continued to eat off each others' plates, like nothing had ever happened.

The minute Mitchie got up the courage to ask Shane to give her back her plate, Harlem squawked in her squeaky little voice, "Shane, can we please go have a talk for a second? Now? " There was no question in her voice, though. She was pissed.

Shane glanced up at her with his mouth stuffed full (he was using Mitchie's fork, but he couldn't stand to be in the same room with her more than once a day? Asshole).

They quietly left the room, and everyone still in the dining room went silent, ready to hear all the juicy drama.

"Well, what was I supposed to think, Shane! I was sitting alone with you and that girl's family, who hate my guts, and you leave the room to frolic about with your ex-girlfriend? What the hell!"

_Excuse me, that girl?!_ Mitchie couldn't help but think.

"They don't hate you! And I wasn't frolicking around with my ex-girlfriend, Nate and Jason were with us for the whole ten seconds, which you just told me you knew because you realized you were at the table by yourself! It was just a joke, Harlem. Please, let it go."

"I'll let it go when you realize it was stupid, and immature, and you were clearly not thinking about how I would feel about this. I'm telling your family goodbye, and then I'm leaving. I can't even stand being in the same room as you right now."

Nobody even pretended to be in a conversation when Harlem came back into the room. She let a dazzling smile take a hold of her face, and said loudly, "Thank you guys so much for having me, the food was delicious" _Oh, yes. That lettuce leaf and broccoli stem looked so appetizing_, Mitchie thought, "But I have to be leaving, I have a prior commitment I just remembered about. Thanks again though, nice meeting you!"

Shane gave Mitchie a death glare, and quickly followed the retreating Harlem's footsteps.

Mitchie also stood up from her place, and followed them. Shane and Harlem were whispering an argument at the door when Mitchie caught up.

"Hey, Harlem. Can I talk to you in private for just a second?" Mitchie asked.

Both Shane and Harlem's eyes widened drastically, and Shane stepped back to let Mitchie and Harlem have some privacy on the porch. Mitchie shut the door behind her, and crossed her arms to the chilly Colorado air that gently whispered around her bare shoulders.

"Listen, Harlem, I know that you're angry with Shane for the Chinese Firedrill thing, but I promise you it wasn't his fault. I thought it up, so you don't have to leave, or be angry with him. Everyone in there is really disappointed to see you go so soon." Mitchie was lying through her teeth about half of this crap, but she didn't need Shane angry with her for something so stupid.

Harlem and Mitchie each sat down on a huge wooden rocking chair, and Harlem let out a big gush of air before saying, "It's okay, Mitchie. I know that he didn't think of it, he's not the sharpest tool in the shed. I just don't like how immature he can act sometimes. What's he going to be like when we have kids, you know? It's time to grow up!"

_Did she insult his intelligence?Hah! Wait… Kids? Grow up? KIDS?_

"Uhhh…yeah…um… Kids?" Mitchie managed to sputter.

"Well, this is the longest I've ever dated a boy, and we're seventeen, after all. I mean, now's as good a time as any to start getting ready for a family. We graduate next year, and then college, but college isn't as important to me as starting a family. And Shane knows that so he needs to stop acting like a teenager and start acting like a husband!" Harlem burst out, panting by the end of her rant.

"Wow. Okay, Harlem. I'm sorry about Shane…acting like a teenager. Really. I just wanted to make sure you knew it wasn't his idea. But I need to get back inside, so I'll see you soon, right?" Mitchie was already making her way towards the door, trying to get away from the crazy girlfriend who was starting to remind her of Kate from Jon and Kate + 8. You know, the crazy, crazy, crazy one.

"Yeah, thanks anyway for that. If I don't run into you sometime this week, I'll see you at Camp on Monday!"

Mitchie froze. She spun around slowly, one hand on the door.

"Camp? You mean, you're also…working there?"

"Yeah, that's actually how Shane and I met each other, last year. I'm a lifeguard, I chaperone the kids around the lake."

Of course she's a life guard. It's not like she would work in the kitchen or something.

"Okay, well I really, really have to go. Bye Harlem!" Mitchie quickly shut the door behind her, barely hearing Harlem's goodbye through the slamming of the door. She didn't even consider going back into the dining room, she just walked back up to her room, closing the door softly.

She laid on her bed for two hours, trying to process everything Harlem had unveiled tonight. One, Harlem was crazy, if you couldn't figure that one out yourself. Two, they would be spending a lot of time at the very least seeing each other, if not actually spending time together. Well, Harlem, Mitchie, and Shane. Lovely. And Three, Camp had ended last summer before Mitchie and Shane had their…_fight_…, so how long had he been talking to Harlem. Had he been planning to break up with her anyway? As she thought through all of this, she finally let her mind wander back to that night, where everything had changed.


End file.
